Abstract

The question for our conference 50 years after the 1968 youth protest wave is how to contribute to its evaluation today. First, I assume that the revolted young people – and so many citizens who allied with them – were right in what they were against: to begin with the US war in Vietnam, a catalyst for all else. If so, what else they were precisely against and how? Moreover, what kind of revolution in which fields they were they for, how clearly? And while honouring their important contribution to ending the war and leading to a number of partial improvements, how do we evaluate the undoubted pragmatic failure of other main objectives?

Part 1: For a Rectification of “Violence”: Toward a Political Epistemology of Inflicted Lesion

Part 2: Satoh’s Dance of Angels as a Dramaturgical Discourse Seeking and Doubting the Young Generation’s Revolution